Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnamese fishingvessels’ infringements of foreign waters have gradually decreased over the pastyears, which is the clearest demonstration of the border guard and other forces’moves to fight illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, an officialhas said.

Notably, violations of the watersof Pacific Islands nations such as Australia, Palau, New Caledonia, and PapuaNew Guinea have been eradicated since 2018, noted Col. Vu Van Hung, DeputyChief of the Staff of the Border Guard High Command, in a recent interviewgranted to the Vietnam News Agency.

He said that placing importance on theIUU fishing combat, the High Command has seriously followed the directions given by the Party Central Committee, the Government, and the Ministry of National Defence while issuing a number of documents on concerted measures against IUU fishing. In particular, it launched a peak crackdown on IUU fishing through this April beforethe European Commission (EC) comes to Vietnam for the fifth inspection over theissue.

During the campaign, it has beencoordinating with the Party committees of coastal localities to enhance the leadershipand directions over the work, increase personnel and vehicles forkey border guard posts, and set up teams for patrolling islands, river mouths, estuarieswhere many unregistered and unlicensed fishing vessels or those without vesselmonitoring systems (VMS) are often concentrated in to ensure all vesselsoperating at sea are eligible.

Anotherfocal task the High Command has been performing is to work with local forcesand administrations to boost communications and law dissemination to raise fishermen’sawareness, classify and make dossiers for strictly managing violating vesselsand high-risk ones, and early detecting IUU practices to take timelycounter-measures, Hung went on.

Besides,he added, it has maintained communication channels with other forces andlocalities in the IUU fishing combat.

To prevent and put an end to vessels' infringement of foreign waters, the High Command will maintain close coordination with relevantforces and local authorities to strongly implement the Prime Minister and the DefenceMinistry’s directions on urgent solutions to fight IUU fishing and lift the EC’s“yellow card” warning.

Itwill effectively use the VMS system to monitor all fishing vesselsat sea, detect any case of VMS connection rule violations, and demand thevessels going beyond the maritime boundary return to the Vietnamese waters in atimely manner.

Anotherimportant task is to order border guard units coordinate with local agricultureand fisheries authorities to make proper preparations for working sessions withthe EC delegation, according to the official.

Vietnam has been working hard to carry outthe EC’s recommendations about IUU fishing prevention and control, towards thegoal of having the EC's yellow card lifted.

The EC issued a “yellow card” warning for Vietnamin this regard in 2017. The "yellow card" is followed by a"green card" if the problem is resolved or a "red card" ifit is not. A “red card” may lead to a ban on aquatic exports to the EU./.